Martin A. Hajer's original study examines the nature of contemporary environmental politics, analysing the emergence and sustenance of institutional perceptions of environmental problems.

This path-breaking study looks at the nature of contemporary environmental politics, analyzing the emergence and sustenance of institutional perceptions of environmental problems. The book argues that a new perspective-- "ecological modernization," which stresses the opportunities of environmental policy for modernizing the economy and stimulating technological innovation--has come to replace the antagonistic debates of the 1970s.

This superb book is one of the few successful attempts to apply contemporary sociological thinking to a detailed empirical case-study in the environmental sphere in a way which is genuinely enlightening for policy makers as well as for academic scoial science disciplines ... an excellent book